I was going to write an update and tell you all what I’ve been up to and what’s going with Sticker Quest – but I’m tired! So I’ll just say that Sticker Quest isn’t dead… just waiting.

Instead I’ll show the first piece artwork for another comic I’m working on about a cat with a rocket on its back – a Rocket Cat if you will! I’ll be collaborating with one of my oldest friends, Vance. It’s really nice to have a not only a writer, but a writer that appeals to your art style and imagination. Also to do all that pesky writing for me because, frankly, I don’t like writing. However, don’t worry, Sticker Quest will continue as planned, written by yours truly.

I haven’t posted any art over the past few weeks as I’ve dedicated all of my being to writing the outline for Sticker Quest. I have really good days and I have really depressingly awful days where I just want to give up and pretend I never tried in the first place. Luckily for all of us, I can’t give up. Quitting Sticker Quest would only cause me to hate myself and who’d want to live with that?

The nice part about this obsession is that it’s really helped me cope with my culture shock and other things that have gone off in my life. I’m learning so much about myself and my limits (which I don’t think I’ve properly challenged yet).

I’m going to share some things that I’ve learned. They could be entirely wrong but here it is:

I’ve spent more time rewriting than writing. The way I pictured Sticker Quest a month ago is not how Sticker Quest is now. Characters and sequences have changed completely – but that’s okay because they’re better now.

Write down every bad idea so then only good ones are left.

Tell your outline to a critical, jerk friend, he’ll find every plot hole and make you hate yourself as you try to fix them. (You’re the best, Josh!)

Coincidences suck.

If you want to be awesome, you have to make sacrifices. That sucks too, but only temporarily.

Surround yourself with other creative people. Get rid of anyone who makes you sad or anxious. You don’t have time to feel anything but pure burning ambition!

Hipsters go and work at hipster cafes for a reason – free but slow wifi crashes Tumblr, so you get a lot done. (Also, tea-based beverages make me happy)

If I fail, I will blame Tumblr. If anything brings Sticker Quest crashing down, it will be porn and cat pictures.

Tonight, after an ill-timed nap, in order to stave off some of those feelings that niggle you when you’re on the verge of some great change, I decided to officially start working on my brain-child, Sticker Quest.

I have tossed the idea around in my head for nearly a year, starting as the premise for a side-scrolling pixel-art game about a girl on a quest to save her boyfriend. And yes, there are stickers involved. The idea spawned from my experience teaching English in Japan. Dealing with any youth, trying to convince them that they want to play lame games for the reward of learning is not always successful. If you throw stickers into the equation, it’s like throwing a steak at a pack of hungry dogs. They LOVE stickers. They enthusiastically, and even violently, participate in even the blandest interview-style games just to get some of that sweet, adhesive, glittery crack. Stickers are currency for their love, quickly spent however — you’d better be packing stickers the next time too.

After a year of doing nothing with the idea, with the help of a friend, the idea evolved into a webcomic. I’ve wanted to draw a comic since I started taking my art more seriously and well, the story has been sitting right there in my head… sort of. That’s what I’m working on now. Sticker Quest isn’t a story yet, it’s just an idea and a handful of scenarios.

So tonight marks the official beginning of the quest for Sticker Quest. The Sticker-Quest Quest. I opened up Google docs and typed the very first words of the outline. And you know what? I LIKED IT.

I avoided writing like the plague — caught up in insecurities and post-traumatic flashbacks of University-paper writing. Some silly part of me thought that perhaps I could just draw Sticker Quest and the story would write itself. That was silly of me — that’s like building a house without a foundation or a plan. So I just started typing. I stopped caring about cliches and started writing down every idea that popped in my head — even if it seems stupid. It’s an outline, I can worry about that later. The best part, it will get easier if I keep doing it, right? Right.

I’ve also made a few designs for the main character, the heroine — a tough-talking, sticker-collecting, moth-hating, face-punching heroine. Design aside, she is still nameless. I thought about video-game superhero Tim Schafer and his notebook full of ideas for the name of the game that would eventually become Grim Fandango. So I’ve started writing down names as they pop into my head and eventually, I know that one will stand out.

I have to admit that I know nothing about the ins-and-outs of creating a webcomic, but as Adventure Time taught me, “Sucking at something is the first step of becoming sorta good at something.” So even if this comic isn’t the most skillfully crafted at first, as long as someone enjoys it, I’ll consider this mission a success. Keep checking back for more updates and/or follow me on twitter.